The Suggestibility of Children's Memory for Being Touched: Planting,Erasing, and Changing Memories

Investigates recent claims that it is relatively easy to suggestively plant false memories in children, by comparing the relative vulnerability to suggestibility of changed, planted, and erased memories. 80 4-year-olds and 80 10-year-olds either were touched in a specific way or were not touched at all, and it was later suggested that a different touch, a completely new touch, or no touch at all had occurred. The suggestibility effect occurred only in the changed memory condition; the difference between the experimental changed condition and the corresponding control condition was significant. In the planted and erased memory conditions no suggestibility effect occurred; there was no significant reduction in the experimental groups relative to the corresponding control conditions. Thus, although it is relatively easy to suggest to a child a change in an event that was experienced, it is less likely that an event can be planted in or erased from memory. It is thus inappropriate to provide courtroom testimony regarding the probability of suggestively planting false memories based on the classic suggestibility research, which has largely been restricted to the study of suggestively changing memories.     

The Rule in Cradock v. Piper (1850): Exception or Principle

In Cradock v. Piper (1850) the court allowed a solicitor-trustee to charge for his professional services in relation to certain litigation This was in the absence of a charging clause, and in apparent violation of a strict and general principle of the law of trusts that trustees had to act without remuneration. The rule still exists today, though it is invariably described as anomalous and lacking any rational basis.This paper examines whether the court did indeed establish an exception to the general no-remuneration rule, or whether it applied legal principle correctly The analysis of the court's judgment, of case law, and of contemporary attitudes to professional trustees, shows that the court was correct in refusing to prohibit remuneration where the connection was too tenuous to give rise to a conflict of interest.     

Non-random Study Attrition: Assessing Correction Techniques and the Magnitude of Bias in a Longitudinal Study of Reentry from Prison

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Longitudinal data offer many advantages to criminological research yet suffer from attrition, namely in the form of sample selection bias. Attrition may...     

Validation of a DNA IQ™-based extraction method for TECAN robotic liquid handling workstations for processing casework

A semi-automated DNA extraction process for casework samples based on the Promega DNA IQ™ system was optimized and validated on TECAN Genesis 150/8 and Freedom EVO robotic liquid handling stations configured with fixed tips and a TECAN TE-Shake™ unit. The use of an orbital shaker during the extraction process promoted efficiency with respect to DNA capture, magnetic bead/DNA complex washes and DNA elution. Validation studies determined the reliability and limitations of this shaker-based process. Reproducibility with regards to DNA yields for the tested robotic workstations proved to be excellent and not significantly different than that offered by the manual phenol/chloroform extraction. DNA extraction of animal:human blood mixtures contaminated with soil demonstrated that a human profile was detectable even in the presence of abundant animal blood. For exhibits containing small amounts of biological material, concordance studies confirmed that DNA yields for this shaker-based extraction process are equivalent or greater to those observed with phenol/chloroform extraction as well as our original validated automated magnetic bead percolation-based extraction process. Our data further supports the increasing use of robotics for the processing of casework samples.     

Automated processing of forensic casework samples using robotic workstations equipped with nondisposable tips: contamination prevention

An automated process has been developed for the analysis of forensic casework samples using TECAN Genesis RSP 150/8 or Freedom EVO liquid handling workstations equipped exclusively with nondisposable tips. Robot tip cleaning routines have been incorporated strategically within the DNA extraction process as well as at the end of each session. Alternative options were examined for cleaning the tips and different strategies were employed to verify cross-contamination. A 2% sodium hypochlorite wash (1/5th dilution of the 10.8% commercial bleach stock) proved to be the best overall approach for preventing cross-contamination of samples processed using our automated protocol. The bleach wash steps do not adversely impact the short tandem repeat (STR) profiles developed from DNA extracted robotically and allow for major cost savings through the implementation of fixed tips. We have demonstrated that robotic workstations equipped with fixed pipette tips can be used with confidence with properly designed tip washing routines to process casework samples using an adapted magnetic bead extraction protocol.     

Analysis of Frontal Sinuses for Personal Identification in a Chinese Sample Using a New Code Number

The study of frontal sinuses for personal identification is a considered approach in the forensic field. In Yoshino's system, the frontal sinus patterns of a given person were formulated as a code number (codY) obtained by arranging the class numbers in each classification item. The aim of this work was to use a new code number (codC) with eight digits that includes other two continuous variables obtained as ratios SOR₁ (left frontal sinus area/left orbit area) and SOR₂ (right frontal sinus area/right orbit area), comparing the results with that of Yoshino. Digital radiographic images of the skulls of 150 Chinese people were analyzed. Spearman's partial correlation coefficients were evaluated between variables characterizing frontal sinus patterns. We used a maximum-weight dependence tree for statistical analysis. Results demonstrated that codC significantly reduced the probability of having the same personal code number compared with codY. Our scientific approach results valid for personal identification purposes.     

Private Law and Housing Justice in Europe

This article explores the different meanings of the right to housing in Europe in public and private relations with housing providers. In light of the fundamental right to housing's meaning in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, we offer a new reading of the CJEU judgments that have hitherto been heralded as extending the social dimension of EU (private) law. We submit that the emphasis on economic and procedural rights risks further ‘economisation’ of housing relations in Europe. While the possibilities to grant direct horizontal effect to the right to housing in EU law currently offer limited potential to counter this trend, private law provides part of the framework for a further balancing of social and economic elements in housing cases. Accordingly, we call for a debate on the specific aspects of horizontal relationships in the complex system of housing justice.     

Crime Prevention,Crime Repression,and Policing: Attitudes of Police Recruits Towards Their Role in Crime Control

This article presents the initial results of a 5‐year longitudinal study of police officers’ attitudes about themselves, their profession, crime, and their role in society. The study sample was comprised of graduating classes at l'École Nationale de Police du Québec in 2003. Graduates completed an anonymous multiple choice questionnaire designed for a similar study conducted in the 1990s in France (Monjardet & Gorgeon, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999). The complete study will track attitude change in these recruits over the first 5 years of their police careers. Results from the first year point to a change in officers’ attitudes resulting from the shock of actually working as police officers and the recruits’ preconceived notions of what police work would be like. Training and education could be adapted to better prepare police recruits for this transitional shock, including changes in mechanisms used to integrate recruits, improvements in police organizations, and increased organizational support for new members. We also suggest ways of identifying areas where continued education would improve the overall quality of police work.     

An effective model of institutional taxation: lunatic asylums in nineteenth-century England

The compulsory establishment of large public lunatic asylums under Act of parliament in the nineteenth century to address the enormous increase in the number of the insane raised legal and practical challenges in relation to their status within the law of tax. As a result of their therapeutic and custodial objectives, these novel institutions required extensive landed property and very specific systems of governance, the fiscal consequences of which potentially undermined those very objectives. This article examines and analyses the nature and legal process of the application of the tax regime to these asylums, concluding that it constituted a rare and effective model of institutional taxation.